Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: AquaShrimp on August 12, 2006, 06:54:44 PM
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Whats the most logical choice for an alternative fuel source in the USA?
I was thinking perhaps nuclear powered hydrolysis. Water is split, providing hydrogen for cars to run on. Build a few massive nuclear power plants and place them in different regions of the country for ease of transport.
I read that a town in Ohio is getting all of its fuel from wastewater. Maybe that could be a source too?
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Mexicans.
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Originally posted by BlueJ1
Mexicans.
:aok
I was gonna say bullchit but....same difference
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I was thinking perhaps nuclear powered hydrolysis. Water is split, providing hydrogen for cars to run on. Build a few massive nuclear power plants and place them in different regions of the country for ease of transport.
It's a bit more than a few. Last I saw, it was something like 3 - 400 large nuclear power stations to replace the oil the US currently uses.
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...The 103 nuclear reactors currently in operation in the U.S. generate over 97 billion W of electricity--about 20% of the country's electricity...
...Western European countries generate around 35% of their electricity from nuclear power--more than from any other source. France and Belgium produce 78% and 55%, respectively, of their electricity from nuclear power.
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Even if an alternate fuel source was made available tomorrow morning, I just dont see it being practical...
What do you expect me to do with a 12 month old $25,000 car that run's on oil/gas???
What do you expect the people who live off used cars every 2 or 3 years because they cant afford something new?
I agree, an alternate source of evergy needs to be found, but I think we need to look at this as realist, and understand it will take at the mininum a decade before >50% of the United States can practically use it
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Cav has hit the nail on the head there.
The big oil companies arent going to like their billions of profits wiped out by a much cheaper alternative fuel source. As long as cars use petrol they are making more money than they would from other sources.
The whole car industry especially dealers and car sales people would be screwed. Think of all the petrol cars in the world being made redundant one big pile of scrap metal!!!
Would love to see fuel prices reduced back to sane levels in the UK its about £1 a litre... global warming would also be helped with more friendly gases like hydrogen.
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Any fuel that will push the middle east leaders back into a 3rd world status once again (Sorry for my reply, been drinking tonight!)
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
Whats the most logical choice for an alternative fuel source in the USA?
I was thinking perhaps nuclear powered hydrolysis. Water is split, providing hydrogen for cars to run on. Build a few massive nuclear power plants and place them in different regions of the country for ease of transport.
Mix in some CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles too.
But we need to move our electrical generation to fission ASAP.
Imagine if we had spent 300 billion @#$%ing dollars on that instead of the cluster@#$% in Iraq...
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Bruv I think you've pretty much got it, but my point was directed at individuals, not big corporations....
If this new "alternative fuel" came out tomorrow, what am I supposed to do with my fairly expensive new car that run's on gasoline???? Surely no one can expect me to sell it for a new environmental friendly, or non dependant of the middle east, fuel burning vehicle....
And what happens for example to my girlfriends parents? People who have NEVER owned a new vehicle...The type of people who have to buy an 8 year old used car and drive it with all it's problem until it dies because they cant afford anything more then $3-4 grand...How can anyone expect them to make the cross over????
Like I said earlier, this problem has to be looked at through the eyes of a realist...Theres just no possible way to change the world over night in regards of this problem, and anyone that argues different is just dead wrong
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Water is the key, your correct on that.
The problem is in how we split it, and where, and the safe transport & storage of tons of Hydrogen.
What we really need is a way to weaken the nucular bonds holding those 2 hydrogen & oxygen atoms together. If we can figure that out, then we can actually do that in the car instead of in some plant.
Nucular power is not the answer, we don't have a way to get rid of the waste we already have. Short of useing Lebenon & Afganistan as a nucular waste dump.
So we need to do the electrolisis in the vehicle, on demand. That way there is no storage issue, all we need to fill our car with is water.
I think the answer is going to be frequency, like the movie "cold fusion".
But finding the right process/frequency, thats the kicker.
The only other rational alternative is to go back to steam, or steam/electric hybrid. Use biomass to power everything. Switchcrass, wood, corn, its all renewable resources. Which means every fall we have a whole new supply to harvest. Best of all it takes the ball out of the middle easts hands. Puts it square back in our court.
Start by figuring how to heat your home with Corn, Wood pellets, or Wood this winter. Instead of Fuel Oil, Propane, & Natural Gas. You'll save yourself money, and help turn this thing back around.
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Cav there is no way this sort of change happens overnight.
First off the Govt would not let it. If everyone switched away from Gasoline overnight our country would go belly up. All the gas stations, pipelines, refinerys, all hire people. Without those jobs you start a ripple effect that shakes the whole house down.
No it needs to be a slow & gradual change. Probably over 20 years, problem is we need to START!
The same thing happened to us back in the 70's and we did nothing.
So your brand new car is going to be rust by the time we stop useing oil entirely.
But we really do need to make a start NOW.
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What we really need is a way to weaken the nucular bonds holding those 2 hydrogen & oxygen atoms together.
Thats what enzymes do. They lower the activation energy for exergonic reactions. I don't think there are any enzymes in nature that work on water though.
Edit: Just looked it up, there is an enzyme that does that, and scientists are already experimenting with it. However it uses light energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen.
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Impulse drive is the future.
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Actually there was an interesting article in Aviation week recently. Synthetic fuel made from coal. The Germans used in WW2 so it' hardly new. The more expensive oil becomes the more economically viable it is to produce. Interestingly it's supposed to be cleaner than oil based fuels.
It can be mixed with normal fuel too.
America has a lot of coal mines!
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If you believe in Peak Oil, then the world wide decline in oil production has already begun and the decline could end production within 10 to 20 years - with increasing world wide demand outstripping a quickly declining oil production which would produce massive shortages to the major consumers.
If you believe the Oil companies and producers there are many many decades left which by then alternative fuel sources will reduce the eventual oil producing to end with a whimper. Fuel prices are high now and rising - not because of the reliance of the middle eastern oil production - but because all the easy cheap oil has already been produced. Exploration and production in "new" untapped oil fields is massively expensive - and will only become more expensive.
Either way alternative fuel production should have already begun - because an industry that could support the amount of consumption thats occuring now will take at least a decade to produce whats required. SASOL in South Africa converts coal to mostly diesel, but it could take at least a decade for a world wide implementation of this process - and thats not taking into account the ecological costs. Bio fuel is not an entirely realistic solution considering if you took the ENTIRE american corn and maize production last year and converted it to fuel, it would still only provide between 15-20% of your yearly needs.
The CSIRO in australia is working on a hydro-electric fuel source thats the same size as a microwave for vehicle use. The amount of money that should being spent on these types of technologies should being spent now...not in 20 years when theres a major problem.
Tronsky
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Alternative energy discussions usually miss the point. They almost always focus on variations on a theme - come up with a chemical means of transporting energy from one point to another, and burning it on demand to do useful things. That's a cycle and paradigm keeping us stuck in a rut, but it's pretty much driven by a lack of an attractive and inexpensive technological alternative. For generating portable mechanical power, we simply have come up with NOTHING more efficient than starting and stopping a controlled and contained explosion using a mixture of petroleum fuel and the oxygen found in our atmosphere.
Considering the entire cycle, from pumping oil from the ground to burning it in your SUV or lawn mower, NOTHING we have nowadays is more efficient and useful that that, period. And that's pretty sad.
We need a few things.
Higher conversion rate from energy to work. (ie. less waste heat).
Higher energy storage density. (ie. MUCH better batteries or more energetic fuels) Or a way to avoid storage and just pull it from thin air, because hauling your fuel around is necessary but inherently wasteful.
High adoption rate (ie. attractive reasons to switch from old to new)
Less wasteful production - consumption cycle (ie. halting rate of increase of use of a non-renewable source)
All the BS about veggie oil, alcohol, and electric power run against one or more of these problems. But if you don't solve ALL of these problems, you're just trading one crappy way of doing things for another, and the alternative is going to cost more than the way we're doing things now.
Personally, I think that the only thing that will fix our energy problems are massive improvements on conversion rate and storage density. Efficiently using what energy you have available is always a good idea, but the efficiency increase must pay for the cost of the changeover including both pure research/development and replacing all the old crap with new crap. And although there are gigawatts of energy just sitting around in our nuke powerplants, getting that energy to where it's actually needed is just as much a problem now as it was 200 years ago. Yea we're using power lines and supertankers to move energy from one point to another instead of hauling wood and coal one donkey-cart at a time, but a lot of energy is still wasted getting that energy to whoever consumes it to do work.
Guess what - NONE of the current alternative fuel sources do ANYTHING about those two problems - efficient conversion to work and storage density. If anything, they are steps backwards. As just one simple example, I'll pick on alcohol. First, it has terrible energy density compared to petroleum fuels. A gallon of gas has somewhere around 25% more stored energy than a gallon of alcohol (this is why alcohol-spiked fuel lowers your gas mileage). Second, since it burns cooler than petroleum you can't create as great of a pressure or temperature differential within a powerplant, and that means the powerplant itself is less efficient. Maximizing a pressure or temperature differential is one of the single most important requirements when designing a powerplant that converts one kind of energy to another. It's why hotter engines produce more power, and it's why really BIG dams make electricity more efficiently than a series of little dams. Third, transmission of alcohol based fuels is less efficient because it mixes with water, it must be transported and stored in more expensive sealed and climate controlled containers and may even need to be processed to remove excess water before it can be used. All of that uses even more energy spent just in the process of getting your fuel from the production source to the end user.
Electricity is even worse, but I think it will gradually get better. Solar cells are nothing more than a battery (look it up), and the energy required to create a solar cell is more than the energy you'll ever get out of it. The question is if the loss is worth it. If you're in the middle of the desert (or out in space) and there are no power lines around, then yea it's worth it. If you're in the middle of a city on a plentiful power grid and you can buy electricity and use it yourself with the same inherent transmission losses as a factory that builds solar cells, then no way in hell is it worth it. Conventional batteries have the same problem. When they develop a battery the weight, size, and shape of a full gas tank that equals the storage density of a tank of gas, then we'll be getting somewhere. Until then, you're simply using the same energy in a different manner and transporting that energy is going to remain your main problem. And electrical motors get hot just like combustion engines, meaning that they're still wasting a significant percentage of the energy as heat.
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BTW, I personally think that to some extent (especially outside of inner cities) we'll go back to just burning stuff. Compressed coal dust has a LOT of energy, can be transported and stored safely and easily, and modern furnace design can make up for a lot of the old problems that led us to switch to gas and oil furnaces a long time ago. Coal or wood pellet furnaces are about as cheap and efficient as gas and oil furnaces nowadays, so I think we'll see people start using those more.
We're also going to see more and more efficient use of existing energy supplies. For example, a number of major home builders are starting to switch to high efficiency inline water heaters. While looking into designing my own home, the builder recommended using a pair of $1500 inline water heaters instead of one large and one small conventional water heater. The estimated savings for the inline heaters resulted in them paying for themselves (by reduced energy use) in about 5 years and if properly maintained, they should last at least 10 so replacement costs won't make this another wasteful "innovation". As more people start using these things in new construction, the price will go down even further.
So I think without a major technological breakthrough solving all of the problems I listed in the above post, we'll just end up working incremental improvements in efficiency and using modern technology to bring back a variety of existing but somewhat unpopular/undesirable energy sources.
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Would love to see fuel prices reduced back to sane levels in the UK its about £1 a litre
The problem is, petrol is actually really cheap. Petrol in the UK costs about 35p a litre, the government takes over 60p a litre in tax.
Any fuel that comes along to replace petrol, the government are either going to tax it to the same extent, or put the taxes on something else. Either way, you have to pay the tax as well.
A litre of petrol is equal to about 8 units of electricity. Current price of a unit of electricity is about 10p. Replace petrol with electricity and it's actually far more expensive, when you add the taxes on to the cost of the electricity.
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See rule # 4
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6- Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". Issues with any breach of rules should be brought to HTC's attention via email at support@hitechcreations.com.
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Excuse me Sir, everyone plz feel free to continue bashing Mexicans. My Bad.
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Its too bad we cant have more nuclear plants generating the power we need. Clearly this would diminish the green house gases from the use of coal and fossil fuels.
But the same people that insist we reduce greenhouse gases play the NIMBY game (Not In My Back Yard).
They wont allow new nuclear plants. And some areas wont allow windmills or some solar arrays....claiming it tarnishes the landscape.
So while there are some solutions out there, just the moment you suggest them, out comes the NIMBY card.
Its this sort of energy stalemate that frustrates me.
We can do better. We should.
Just, dammit, let us!
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I am a treehugger and I am pro nukular plants.
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Can anyone actually point to a method to produce a useable hydrogen fuel in which the extraction/seperation method doesnt actual require more energy than the hydrogen can deliver? It may exist, but I haven't seen or heard of it yet.
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Dago, it's called a ram scoop but it only works in space.
The biomass fad won't work as a fuel replacement. Yes it might reduce our petro fuel use slightly but there isn't enough arable land in the US to support the growth of enough biomass to take the place of the billions of barrels of oil we now use for fuel, both gas and diesel.
IF another solution comes into the picture it won't happen over night. First off if it does depend on a fuel source that has to be replenished you will have to build a fuel system to provide fill ups across the country. I would imagine it would start with small local use cars only then build up from there so you can go across the country and find fuel reliably. Once a network of fuel stops is built then there will be a gradual transition to the newer form of transportation as the older vehicles wear out. They are a disposable item and they do wear out. The transition for support will still maintain jobs as they are for a while as the work force retrains from petro technology to the new system. It's happened before when the horse / buggy time transitioned over to the horseless carriage era. It will do so again.
Nothing mechanical will run forever especially with the average drivers we have on the roads. There will always be the need for mechanics and garages to fix the critters.
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Originally posted by Nilsen
I am a treehugger and I am pro nukular plants.
Does that make you a Liberal Conservative?
:)
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Originally posted by Maverick
The biomass fad won't work as a fuel replacement. Yes it might reduce our petro fuel use slightly but there isn't enough arable land in the US to support the growth of enough biomass to take the place of the billions of barrels of oil we now use for fuel, both gas and diesel.
sigh, here we go again. not going to bother saying it, just read link.
Jouney to Forever; how much land for Alternate fuels (http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html#howmuch)
save to favorites to
read the whole page and links when you have time. it is very interesting reading for those concerned with fuels etc.
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Originally posted by soda72
Does that make you a Liberal Conservative?
:)
I suppose it does. Have never voted to the far left, but many times to the far right. Now im more between the middle and right.
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First ....drill everywhere, when we use all that up, burn everything, after that convert all the coal to oil. After that, look for a new energy source.
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Originally posted by cav58d
Even if an alternate fuel source was made available tomorrow morning, I just dont see it being practical...
What do you expect me to do with a 12 month old $25,000 car that run's on oil/gas???
What do you expect the people who live off used cars every 2 or 3 years because they cant afford something new?
I agree, an alternate source of evergy needs to be found, but I think we need to look at this as realist, and understand it will take at the mininum a decade before >50% of the United States can practically use it
Thank you, I'm one of the ones that gets a used car every 2 or 3 years, but I heard on teh cbs sunday morning news a couple of weeks ago about a truck stop in Texas that Willie Nelsion goes to that produces Diesel fuel out of deep fat fryer grease. I want to learn more about this, I'll start buying used cars every 2 or 3 years with diesel engines in them.
With te fuel savings I could afford to move out of this apt into a trailer, ( trust me it'd be a improvement )
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The biomass fad won't work as a fuel replacement. Yes it might reduce our petro fuel use slightly but there isn't enough arable land in the US to support the growth of enough biomass to take the place of the billions of barrels of oil we now use for fuel, both gas and diesel.
This isn't quite true. One estimate is that it will take 1000 square miles to produce a years worth of energy for the United States from genetically engineered algae.
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Originally posted by dmf
I want to learn more about this, I'll start buying used cars every 2 or 3 years with diesel engines in them.
DMF, had a friend install such a system in a diesel Benz. He loves it.
His was done in Tennessee but the system is like the one described here:
http://www.greasecar.com/
He had it all done, turnkey operation and it cost him less than $2K as I recall.
He gets his "fuel" free from a local restaurant.
You have to decide if it's worth $2k up front plus the collecting and filtering of the fuel all the time.
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Biodiesel and ethanol are the short term or bridging solution. They are viable only to the point of getting us to the next step. That step will be either hydrogen or nuke. Cold fission is the long term answer, unfortunately it does not exist yet.
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Originally posted by FUNKED1
Imagine if we had spent 300 billion @#$%ing dollars on that instead of the cluster@#$% in Iraq...
I imagine we'd have a record number of physics proffessors getting arrested for misappropriation of funds. It would just be more difficult to establish ties back to Chaney.
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:huh
um. less dead people.
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Originally posted by cpxxx
Actually there was an interesting article in Aviation week recently. Synthetic fuel made from coal. The Germans used in WW2 so it' hardly new. The more expensive oil becomes the more economically viable it is to produce. Interestingly it's supposed to be cleaner than oil based fuels.
It can be mixed with normal fuel too.
America has a lot of coal mines!
But coal is not a renewable resource, it is just as scant as oil.
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eagl... one correction... solar panels do take a lot of energy to produce but.. the ones we are making are very poor... they are like 5% efficient.
There are panels out there that are about 80% efficient and on their way to becoming viable.
If we want the government to do something then they could simply offer a billion dollar reward for the first solar panel that was say.... 80% efficient and cost $500 per 4' x 8' panel... at 80% efficient the typical house would only need 2 or 3 of em to be relatively self sufficient..
instead.. the government will probly continue to offer rebates on any crap panels that sleaze bag salesman and contractors can throw on a roof thereby effectively halting any real development.
lazs
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The worlds largest producer of sola cell wafers is located in my my town. Its haveing a fenomenal growth with the prices we are seeing on power now. Has been a great investement for me. :)
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Lazs,
I'll believe it when I see it. There are a whole lot of snake oil salesmen out there, and where it comes to measurable results and repeatable/usable working hardware, the 80% solar cell ranks somewhere between the healing properties of magnet matress pads and cold fusion. Nasa and various satellite manufacturers have put a lot of time/effort into solar cell research and the best they can get out in space (above that pesky atmosphere) using tricky pass-through double-sided reflector techniques is about 20% (IIRC). And even those seem to go tits-up at an alarming rate, much to the chagrin of companies who just spent 800 million bucks on their new fancy comm satellite that is now running on 70% expected power because the solar cell performance degraded far faster than expected. :furious
Don't get me wrong, solar cells have many legit uses even today, but I don't think we'll see a really big breakthrough in efficiency anytime soon even with the space industry tossing millions of dollars at the problem every year. It's easy (and incredibly lazy/cynical/ignorant) to say our energy problems would be solved if the govt only spent $XXX on THIS instead of THAT, but the fact is that whoever comes up with the next big breakthrough is going to be rich so even corporations intrenched in the petroleum cycle are working on this, and there are several expensive industries (space for one) that are actively advancing the state of the art (and throwing obscene amounts of money at it), and we're still only getting incremental improvements.
If we could only turn all the bad spelling and hideous grammar (and my run-on sentences) on this BBS into energy... That would fix everything. But those dictionary.com bastages are keeping us down by helping me spell those hard words, damn them.
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the breakthroughs are allready happening eagl... even conventional solar panels have decreased in cost per KW by a factor of 20 in the last decade.
the wave of the future for solar is using cone shaped mirrors to concentrate the solar rays and in the platforms that allow tracking of the sun.
80% is very much on the horizon.
lazs
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Dude, pass the doobie 'cause I want some of what you're smokin :)
Seriously, I guess I'm just a bit cynical because I've seen so many promising advances turn out to be just so much BS and hype.
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I agree... I know an engineer who is friends with another engineer (yeah I know but the guy is pretty trustworthy) who is doing some pretty neat stuff.
I will try to get the website.
Even today with the crappy panels we have (and they are 20 times better than a decase ago) I have seen installations that make houses that are 2500 square feet virtualy energy self sufficient.
This is important because supplying electricity to the home grid is the worst problem we have.
The two homes I know of that have had solar for over 2 years both say that... they produce more electrical than they can use in the summer and that in the winter their bills run around $50... if they could sell back execess summer power they would probly break even at the least.
The systems are running about $20K these days... they will be less in 5 years and less in 5 more.
How do you figure that solar panels will not get more efficient? Do you believe that the current efficiency rate is the max possible?
lazs
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Ever seen this article? Wonder what ever became of the technology developed for turning almost anything into synthetic oil?
[http://discover.com/issues/apr-06/features/anything-oil/[/URL]
Regards, Shuckins
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there are some interesting systems which use an array of mirrors coupled with a central condenser that is made efficient via use of a heliostat.
raw energy conversion.
essentially heat energy.
it operates much like the solar death ray that was going around the web a year or so ago.
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The way solar cells work for household uses is to store the electricity in a battery for use by the house. Since the cells do not produce 110 volt AC current it must then be changes from 12 volt DC to 120 AC by the use of an inverter. In order to use a power hungry device like air conditioning you must have a massive solar cell array and an even more massive battery array. The amount of power for the amount of ground covered by the array is a rather poor return for a static house. Of course you get zilch at night and very little on cloudy days. They tried to make a solar reliant "community" about 70 miles NW of Phoenix. So far after about 10 years now I believe, the only ones there are a care taking staff to keep the place from falling down.
RV folks are making a go of it but only in the desert Southwest and in the wintertime when they don't have to run the airconditioner. They also have a preponderance of 12 volt systems rather than 120 volt AC ones. Example, my trailer has only 1 110 volt light in it from the manufacturer. The only 110 volt AC items are the airconditioner / heat pump, TV stereo and the microwave. Everything else is 12 volt including the propane furnace. In order to make the RV reliant on solar you must have at least four 6 volt golf cart batteries, the kind that weigh 125 lbs. each and you will still have to limit the 110 volt items like TV and computers to maintain enough power to keep the furnace running at night. Even running one or two small 15,000 BTU air conditioners for a 400 sq ft. RV is beyond what can be handled by solar.
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Originally posted by Toad
DMF, had a friend install such a system in a diesel Benz. He loves it.
His was done in Tennessee but the system is like the one described here:
http://www.greasecar.com/
He had it all done, turnkey operation and it cost him less than $2K as I recall.
He gets his "fuel" free from a local restaurant.
You have to decide if it's worth $2k up front plus the collecting and filtering of the fuel all the time.
Thank you very much Toad:) Yes at the price of gas 2k would be less than I spend in a year on gas. And I grew up on a farm, I have no quams about filtering grease. In fact I have no problems killing the animal to make grease in the first place.
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DMF, You are my kinda gal!!!
:D
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Originally posted by rpm
Biodiesel and ethanol are the short term or bridging solution. They are viable only to the point of getting us to the next step. That step will be either hydrogen or nuke. Cold fission is the long term answer, unfortunately it does not exist yet.
Ok I may not be the smartest woman in the world, but You can have all the cold fusion you want in your car, but stay about a light year away from me, cause when you explode, I don't want to be sucked into the black hole that is where you used to be.
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
I read that a town in Ohio is getting all of its fuel from wastewater. Maybe that could be a source too?
I know this sounds "odd". But my father and I both agree that the best alternative is what our bodies produce naturally each day. That's right, human waste.
Would be quite easy to locate it, get it from the local sewer sanitation department. Then, so you cant just drop in your tank and run, companies would "refine" it and add special chemicals or whatever they do to eliminate the particular stench and to add a resourceful energy to the fuel source. After that, ship the same as always and fill 'er up.:eek:
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I think it was Hondo that just opened up a large new solar cell manufacturing facility recently.
That technology continues to improve, as well as the surfaces and materials that can be used. I recall seeing a Yahoo News clip where they showed a solar panel that you could fold up...for use with cell phones.
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Originally posted by Maverick
RV folks are making a go of it but only in the desert Southwest and in the wintertime when they don't have to run the airconditioner. They also have a preponderance of 12 volt systems rather than 120 volt AC ones. Example, my trailer has only 1 110 volt light in it from the manufacturer. The only 110 volt AC items are the airconditioner / heat pump, TV stereo and the microwave. Everything else is 12 volt including the propane furnace. In order to make the RV reliant on solar you must have at least four 6 volt golf cart batteries, the kind that weigh 125 lbs. each and you will still have to limit the 110 volt items like TV and computers to maintain enough power to keep the furnace running at night. Even running one or two small 15,000 BTU air conditioners for a 400 sq ft. RV is beyond what can be handled by solar.
Its interesting you mention the RV folks
A lot of the neat things I've read about solar and wind technology have been from the sail boat/cruiser folks. I was always impressed with some of the vessels I worked on, they had everything set to optimize any/all available power sources.
Of course, everything they had on board, minus laptops, etc were on 12V
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Originally posted by Maverick
DMF, You are my kinda gal!!!
:D
:noid
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What's needed is a fundamental change in the way we percieve of personal transportation.
In the future's energy situation will force these changes whether people like them or not.
Eletrical based mass transit will be an absolute necessity in all states and communities regardless of population density.
People will have to, for the most part, give up the idea of being able to control the speed and lane choice on hiways as computer controled hiways will become the most efficient use of energy. The hiway will provide the power and control for these comuters via inlayed < inbeded in the roadway > comunication lines.
The power for these changes will be fusion rather than fission, this IS the future of nuclear power. Combine that with a massive increase in hydro electric production and the future may be one where the want of energy will not be a factor in any governments foreign policy. This can come none too soon, IMO.
IMO, this fundamental change in the public's perception and it's acceptance is what the future holds for generations to come.
Those of you who think that these changes will never come have forgotten how just over 100 years ago powered flight was a fantasy. It only took 66 years or so to go from flying in a powered kite to landing on the moon.
Just some random thoughts from an old flatulent geezer.
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Flatbar,
If you think some of the "personal freedom" posts in the helmet thread were bad, wait until some folks see YOUR post. Stop allowing people to drive the car themselves?!?!?!?!?! Heresy!!!! Force folks to comply with the speed limit by not allowing them to control the throttle?!?!?!? Traitor!!!!!
:D
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The problem with an alternative fuel is directly tied to energy storage ability. Hydrogen, which our Commander and Chief has declaired is the path to take, is present in all fossil fuels and provides all the fuel energy! Hydrogen in petrolium is bonded in a stable form making it lightweight, portable, and easily converted to another form (heat).
Pure hydrogen, however, is extremely dangerous. The hydrogen has to be bonded to another material (nature uses carbon and nitrogen) to make it stable. As to date, I don't believe there are any 'quick' conversion processes that use very little energy.
Ethanol, methanol, natural gas, petrolium oil, and other hydrocarbon fuels all share the same benefits of high energy to weight, quick conversion, and stability. Solar cells, which someone mentioned operate just like batteries (but don't) are a new technology based on Einsteins photo electric effect. That's where electrons are moved from light energy absorption in atoms due to a photovoltaic process. Nuclear energy works with splitting the nucleus of the atom (hence the name) but does not have a high energy to weight (considering auxillary equipment), quick energy conversion, and some worry about it's stability. Fusion, where atoms are fused together (hence the name) is how our sun works but has the advantage of gravity to keep the hydrogen fuel in place.
Fusion research has basically been abandonded by the US Government. Research for high efficency electrical batteries is not a priority. Conversion processes for stabilizing hydrogen into another compound is not a priority. So, unless Japan, China, Europe, or some other country researches and develops these technologies we won't have them anytime soon.
It would help if people in the US would conserve fuel, but that won't happen until gas prices hit about $6.00/gal. So, for the near future, oil and ethanol type fuels are all we have for vehicles. Even if fusion became operational (or many more nuclear plants were built), converting the energy into something useable to replace gas is another big problem.
Personally, I like the idea of a high tech electric battery and solar cells. That would lead to more options (including electric cars) and possibly eliminate some of our electricity grid requirements because buildings could make instead of only consume energy. I would expect plenty of opposition to this however, since it's not easy to centralize, control, and tax energy produced that way.
Regards,
Malta
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One of the largest problems is the grid that it takes to maintain suburbs... take the load off the grid and you will do the most good.
unlike flatbar... I think that we can have our freedom and our electricity at the same time. Every city in kalifornia has a bus system that is mandated... if these were electric then that would take some of the burden..
As solar becomes more practical it will take the strain off the subburban grid which is the real problem. When people are getting their electricity for virtually free... we will see more commuters plugged in... the electric cars will take the load off the refineries. No one need give up any freedom..
solar will get better... batteries and electric drives for cars will get better.... hybrid trucks and cars will take up some slack...
It is not the end but the beggining. Once the world does not need so much oil the arabs can slip back into the 3rd century.
lazs
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Laz,
The california power grid is already strained past it's capacity to support the structure already there. If you add electric buses, won't that just make the situation worse and cost everyone more in higher electricity bills? I wonder what would happen when a brown out hits, would the bus simply stop in the middle of the street?
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Originally posted by Maverick
Flatbar,
If you think some of the "personal freedom" posts in the helmet thread were bad, wait until some folks see YOUR post. Stop allowing people to drive the car themselves?!?!?!?!?! Heresy!!!! Force folks to comply with the speed limit by not allowing them to control the throttle?!?!?!? Traitor!!!!!
:D
I'd wholeheartedly welcome a car I could tell where to go and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Maybe not when I was 20.
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Originally posted by lukster
I'd wholeheartedly welcome a car I could tell where to go and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Maybe not when I was 20.
You have had that for quite some time, it's called a taxi.........
:p
Just kidding. I would have a hard time myself letting go of the wheel and letting "george" handle the navigation.
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Originally posted by Maverick
Laz,
The california power grid is already strained past it's capacity to support the structure already there. If you add electric buses, won't that just make the situation worse and cost everyone more in higher electricity bills? I wonder what would happen when a brown out hits, would the bus simply stop in the middle of the street?
Distributed power generation is going to help Calif.
Tax incentives are in place in Calif for people to install photovoltaics on their roofs, and during the heat of the day PV's could at least partially power A/C units (Swamp coolers would be more energy efficient and would work very well in most of the state.)
Net metering allows the home owner to turn the meter backwards and send power to the grid on the days when he produces more than he consumes. PV's would work best on the hot sunny days and that is now peak power demand. The grid then becomes the battery for the homeowner and on cloudy days or nitetime the the home is a net draw on the grid. You could make 700 watts for an installation cost of $10k and then get back much of your outlay with tax incentives over the next five years.
Originally posted by Dago
Can anyone actually point to a method to produce a useable hydrogen fuel in which the extraction/seperation method doesnt actual require more energy than the hydrogen can deliver? It may exist, but I haven't seen or heard of it yet.
Doesn't exist and according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, cannot exist. If you get out more of something than you put in, then you have a limitless supply of something. That is better than perpetual motion, a 1:1 ratio.
Even natural gas fired power plants... effecient Brayton cycles (Gas Turbines use the Brayon cycle) achieve 20 to 25% heat efficiency. (Energy out / Energy in)
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Holden,
I could agree on the solar panels being a help but the cali grid expands so fast I think it would be a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage. It would work best in the south eatern part of the state but would fail miserably in the northern part. Same for the swamp cooler. Given the water situation there the swamp cooler could bite them as well as it typically uses about 65 gallons per day in AZ experiance. They are still popular here, at least until the humidity goes up over 30%. :eek:
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I live in Southern Oregon and PV's work here... Oregon has similar tax incentives and even in Portland PV's are effective.
Cal needs 45 to 50 Gigawatts at peak demand.
With a population of 20 to 25 million, and 5 people under each roof, and each roof putting on 700 watts, that would be 3.5 gigawatts off the peak demand, with no load on the grid.
3.5 gigwatts is the equivalent of 7 large combined cycle gas turbine plants.
Obviously expansion of the grid needs to take place. Nuclear plants as well as wind, wave, tidal, and good old fashion fossil plants need to come on line as well.
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mav... the real problem with the grid is the way it is spread out to the "suburbs" that is the bottleneck and the real problem.. if we did not need to feed these bottlencks...indeed... if they were more than self sufficient then charging stations for public transport closer to the large city grids... closer to the source... would be no problem. Getting juice to the burbs is like trying to get an elephant through a straw.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
mav... the real problem with the grid is the way it is spread out to the "suburbs" that is the bottleneck and the real problem.. if we did not need to feed these bottlencks...indeed... if they were more than self sufficient then charging stations for public transport closer to the large city grids... closer to the source... would be no problem. Getting juice to the burbs is like trying to get an elephant through a straw.
lazs
or like trying to get a Value Menu Boy (BK) to be nice... :D
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well.... nice is ok if you are a dishonest suck up with low self esteem.
lazs
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I kinda tend to shy away from Nuclear powered cars, too many people thing red lights are optional, you know the scene, one car Tbones the other, the reactor core splits in half, and poof 2/3 of yoru city become part of history.
Hydrogen is totally out of the question, Why? One word >>>> Hindenburg.
Cold fusion? Yea whatever, just stay 1 light year away from me.
Solar power? good idea, but what happens when it rains?
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when it rains the solar panels produce less power.
The grid is the most strained durring daylight hours. The grid creating power to send to the factories and cities durring the day instead of straining it like it does now would be a huge deal.
solar and battery tech will get better... there is no way that it won't..... Unless the government comes up with some "rebate" political scam to stop research.
If the "government" want to help it can offer a billion dollar reward for the first battery to reach a certain storage capicity or the first solar panel to reach a certain efficiency level at a certain cost.
lazs
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Originally posted by dmf
Hydrogen is totally out of the question, Why? One word >>>> Hindenburg.
(http://www.haagengineering.com/expertise/pages/areas_expertise/media/images/explosion.jpg) Natural Gas
(http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/statenislandbarge-closeup2.jpg) Gasoline
(http://www.dme.gov.za/images/publications/pic08.jpg) Coal Dust
(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/02/17/calif.crash.02/story.fire.cars.jpg) Jet Fuel
All these can explode and kill us too.